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Alicent’s mother was the type of person to have twenty boxes of holiday decorations stored away in the attic.
They always spent the month before running around their home, putting the snowy village set just exactly how she wanted, arranging the fake trees and baubles just so.
When Alicent and Gwayne misbehaved, or teased their mum about her box full of gnomes, she sent them out into the freezing cold to help their dad decorate outside, stringing lights by the gutters and hanging wreaths outside all the windows.
To humble you a bit before you start making fun of more of my decorations, she said, with a playful tap to Alicent’s nose and a kiss to her curls before guiding her out the door.
Unlike their mother, Otto ran the whole decorating operation more like the military than something fun. They had to hold the roll of lights with the right tension, or he’d glare at them from the ladder, and god forbid they accidentally leave a kink in the extension cord.
Once, when Alicent accidentally spilled her juice on the brand-new ribbon they were going to use on the wreaths, he shouted at her until she cried.
Then, guilt colored his cheeks and he patted her on the back until she stopped hiccuping, then helped her tie perfect bows with the old red ribbon from last year instead.
No matter the struggle outdoors, they always came inside to mugs of warm hot chocolate topped with mini marshmallows, and they’d gather in the living room with piles of blankets, surrounded by the soft glow of the strings of lights Alyrie put up. She would tuck Alicent into her side, and Gwayne would sit on the ground with his Legos, and it all felt- cozy. Perfect.
Alicent’s memories of warm, firelit winters quickly faded once Alyrie got sick.
That year, eight months after her diagnosis, the four Hightowers spent most of November and December surrounded by the dull eggshell walls of Alyrie’s hospital room, keeping her company through what felt like endless chemotherapy treatments and appointments.
The doctors said she might be strong enough in a few days, provided the pneumonia she’d caught in the hospital died down, and Alicent clung to that hope, though she wasn’t even quite sure what was so scary about pneumonia in the first place.
In the rare days where they couldn’t go visit Alyrie, they tried- well, Alicent and Gwayne tried- to decorate without her in hopes that she’d come home in time to see it all.
Turns out setting up their house with all of the decorations was way harder than they remembered it. Somehow, it took hours, instead of just one, to figure out where their mum always liked for the miniature trees to go.
They tried to ask Otto for help, but he snapped at them, his face and neck bright red, and they never dared to bring it up again.
Gwayne nearly broke his toe trying to lift the box of the village buildings down from the attic, and they decided that they would rather not risk breaking the villages that their mum loved so much.
Instead, they scraped by with the few things that they could find in the closets- a few ragged old collectible snowmen, two mini fake trees- but the house felt empty that year.
“Next year,” Gwayne told Alicent, when they sat around their dark kitchen, hands wrapped around lukewarm mugs of too-thick hot cocoa and surrounded by awkwardly arranged trinkets that they couldn’t manage to get to sit the way their mum always could. “Next year, she’ll be able to teach us.”
By February, their mum was gone, and the holidays never felt quite the same after that.
The first year after their mum died, Alicent snuck through the cavernous darkness of the upstairs, her socked feet quiet on the stairs, clutching the bag of things she’d bought for Gwayne when Mrs. Targaryen picked Alicent up from school last week- chocolate coins, shortbread biscuits, a few peppermint candy canes.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she realized the lights over the still-smoldering fireplace were still on, and someone was bent over something on the floor-
Gwayne stood hastily, hiding something behind his back. “What’re you doing awake?” he demanded, face flushed, still in his pajamas. Alicent’s stocking was missing from its usual hook.
“Nothing,” Alicent said, hiding her own bag in her arms as best she could.
They looked at each other for a moment, and then-
“Well, I guess we could just open them now,” Gwayne said, resigned, bringing Alicent’s now-stuffed stocking out from behind him. “No point in lying.”
Alicent glanced at the large grandfather clock in the corner. It wasn’t even midnight yet. “But-”
“Mummy, can we please go down and open our gifts-”
“No gifts until 7:00, at least, my love, the holidays are for sleeping in. When the clock chimes seven, you can wake me.”
“It can be our new thing. Gifts before.”
Gwayne is insistent, his eyes wide with something Alicent has begun to recognize as grief.
Alicent swallowed. “Okay,” she said.
As Alicent grew older, her recollections of the Sevenmas with her mother dulled into something more nostalgic than true memory.
The first time she realized that, she cried.
Her clearest memories of the holidays become almost entirely Gwayne- how opening their stockings before midnight became a reminder she set and she never removed from her phone, how he would take her to ice skating and beg her to help him make a new cookie recipe to impress his girlfriend-
As the years went on, the Targaryens also become a fixture in Alicent’s winter traditions.
She’s not entirely sure how.
She and Rhaenyra had always been friends when they were younger, but perplexingly, Aemma became the one that would pick both Alicent and Gwayne up from their school things most nights- sometimes even them taking them out for ice cream, if the weather was nice.
Alicent never really understood why Aemma went out of her way to do so. The Hightowers lived almost twenty minutes from the Targaryens, in the opposite direction from school, and they only knew each other because Otto is Viserys’s CFO at Targaryen Enterprises.
But regardless, because of Aemma’s generosity, Alicent’s life becomes livelier.
Rhaenyra and her brother, Baelon, are devilish troublemakers, though Rhaenyra mellows out when she’s with Alicent- and they’re always busy, dashing off to sports and clubs and what-have-yous.
Rhaenyra starts inviting Alicent to the Targaryen holiday party- a selective party, at that, consisting of a mixture of Targaryen business partners and their families, plus the Velaryons.
Before, Otto would never let Alicent attend with him.
It’s no place for children, he’d always said- but there were always children there: Rhaena and Baela, for one, plus a few Starks.
At first, Alicent feels terribly out of place at these parties.
Her father clearly disdains her presence, barely even giving her so much as a chilly pat on the back when he sees her. She follows Rhaenyra around like a lost puppy the first time, and sneaks away to cry in the bathroom after she tries to talk about her debate team project with her father and all he says in response was, ‘That’s nice, Alicent.’
But slowly, year after year, she grows more comfortable with the people that her father always told her to be wary of. It was hard not to when she sees them sporadically throughout the year each time they visit the Targaryens’ home.
After a while, they became her own family of sorts.
One year, Rhaenys Targaryen found a feverish Alicent curled up in an armchair by the fireplace in the front room, attempting to hide away from the suffocating hubbub of the party. Alicent had tried to protest that she was fine, petrified of being perceived as an ungrateful guest, but Rhaenys had shushed her with a a startling softness for a woman who usually emitted such an austere, regal demeanor.
She fussed around Alicent, tucking a throw from a cabinet around her shoulders, before disappearing back into the hallway. Alicent assumed she’d left to return to the celebrations, but she’d returned a moment later with a mug of warm vanilla milk in one hand and two pills of cold medicine in the other.
“Drink up, sweetling,” Rhaenys had murmured, smoothing sweaty curls off Alicent’s burning forehead.
Later that night, Alicent opened her aching eyes to realize that someone had carried her upstairs and tucked her into bed while she had been sleeping.
Another year, Alicent is paired with Corlys Velaryon, Rhaenys’s husband, for charades. They lose, badly- but Corlys never seemed put off by Alicent’s terrible acting skills. In fact, he seemed thoroughly impressed with her, though she wasn’t sure why, when she couldn’t even manage to get him to guess ‘fishing’ as their prompt.
Years later, over the honey glazed ham and sparkling wine the Targaryens always served at their holiday dinner, he offers her an internship at his law firm when she stumbles through explaining that she’s looking at universities where she can learn to be a medical lawyer, all while Otto stares into his plate and shakes his head in a way that declares to the entire table that no, he does not want her to practice medical law.
But when Alicent musters the courage to look up at Corlys, she’s surprised when she can tell that he means it. That he’s not just offering to be kind.
(Otto fumes, and Alicent tries not to notice.)
But regardless of the kindness of both the Targaryens and the Velaryons, Rhaenyra is the one who makes the parties feel like home.
Alicent is twenty, now, and just hours after a horrible fight with her father over taking advantage of the Targaryens’ hospitality and doing fuck-all with your life but stew in your mother’s death, she has an anxiety attack at the holiday party that is so bad that she has to sit upstairs in the dark for two hours to try and calm herself down.
She nearly works herself up again when she thinks of all of the things she’s missing because of it- the holiday gift swap games, where she’s supposed to have brought something, and the charades, where her absence is surely noticed-
What will Aemma and Viserys think-
But then Rhaenyra appears in the doorway to the guest room with one of Alicent’s favorite lemon bars and a glass of punch, and Alicent feels something in her heart settle.
“Don’t you want to be celebrating?” Alicent sniffles through a shuddering sip of the punch, and Rhaenyra just smiles, her clear eyes achingly soft.
“I’d rather sit here and eat desserts with you,” she says.
Alicent tries to laugh, but it comes out more like a sob as she stares at her picked-apart hands, her mind refusing to let go of her own father’s words-
You’re going to spend your whole life charging families for your condolences, and get absolutely nothing accomplished for them in the meantime. What exactly do you hope to accomplish, Alicent? Do you think that if you sue enough insurance companies that you could cure cancer? Then perhaps you should go into surgery, or research- though I shudder to think what would happen to the children with your hands holding the scalpel.
Rhaenyra’s fingers interlace with Alicent’s and squeeze them tightly. “I’m sorry about your dad,” she says.
“It’s okay,” Alicent says, limply.
“You’re going to change lives,” Rhaenyra tells her, and, like always, there’s a swagger to her words that Alicent has never been able to afford herself, a self-assuredness that Otto stamped out of her long ago. “He’s stupid for not acknowledging that.”
“Are you sure?”
Needy, her father’s voice hisses.
Alicent rips at her cuticle, guilt gnawing at the pit of her stomach, but she couldn’t have stopped herself from asking even if she tried.
Rhaenyra cups Alicent’s face in her hand, her thumb brushing across the smattering of freckles on Alicent’s cheeks. She leans forward, all earnestness.
“Alicent. You’re the smartest, most compassionate person I know. You care, and that makes all the difference, especially in law. Corlys always says as much.”
Alicent swallows, nods, but can’t hold the intensity of Rhaenyra’s gaze, and looks down at her hands instead, at the streaks of dried blood and peeling skin. She feels far from smart, and she’s not quite sure how compassion is supposed to get her anywhere, but she appreciates that Rhaenyra’s tried.
That’s what she always appreciates about Rhaenyra- that she tries to hold the fragile, broken parts of Alicent together even though it almost never completely works.
A raucous roar from downstairs has Alicent sucking in a shaky breath, wiping the clammy palms of her hands on her emerald green dress pants.
“Let’s go back down,” she says, forcing a brighter, happier tone to her voice as she stands, but Rhaenyra catches her hand, tugs her back before she can make it to the door.
“Alicent,” she starts, but Alicent shakes her head.
“Please, Rhaenyra, not tonight.”
It’s early spring and Alicent has just barely turned twenty-one when Viserys dies. She goes to the funeral and holds a stoic Rhaenyra’s hand, and tries not to think about her mother, while Otto puts on his best designer suit and speaks to every board member of Targaryen Enterprises at the reception.
Rhaenyra is quiet the rest of the summer and the fall. She barely texts and almost never calls, which is a rarity for both of them. Even though they’re attending different universities, they used to always talk, even if it was just sending stupid social media posts back and forth.
This made me think of you.
A week before the yearly holiday party, and just nine days before Sevenmas, Aemma calls Alicent, sounding far older and tired than she had the last time the two of them saw each other.
“Alicent, dear, I’m not quite sure what your plans for the holidays might be, or if you were planning on coming back to King’s Landing to see your father, but Rhaenyra’s staying at Dragonstone, and I was wondering if you might be willing to pay her a visit? I’m worried about her,” Aemma says, in that sweet way of hers where she asks in a way that is a true ask, but is so kindly put that Alicent always knows her answer is ‘yes’ before Aemma has even finished.
“I’d love to, Mrs. Tar- Aemma.”
“Thank you,” Aemma breathes, relief evident in her voice, and Alicent’s stomach twists in sympathy.
“Be sure to save last place in charades for me,” she says, and Aemma laughs.
“Oh, I will. And please call when you come home. I’ll make up a special batch of those lemon bars you love to make up for missing them at the party this year.”
Dragonstone is freezing in winter, and the wind and salty spray makes a mess of Alicent’s hair within seconds after she gets out of the car Aemma arranged for her, but she has never felt warmer when she shows up at the Targaryen’s ancestral home.
Rhaenyra answers the doorbell, squinting and suspicious, before her eyes widen, and she’s throwing her arms around Alicent, holding her so tightly that Alicent can feel just how thin she’s gotten- “Oh, my gods, what are you doing here, my mum said she was scheming all sorts of things for when you got back to King’s Landing and I thought that meant you were--”
“I wanted to see you,” Alicent says, earnest, and Rhaenyra just laughs, a bewildered, but elated laugh, before hugging Alicent again, face buried in Alicent’s shoulder-
“I missed you so much,” she breathes, more subdued, and Alicent swallows.
I missed you more.
They spend the next few weeks of the holiday glued at the hip.
Even though Alicent’s been friends with Rhaenyra for years, she’s never been here before- her fingers turn white in the cold even in King’s Landing, and the winters in Dragonstone are even worse than the winters at home- not to mention that Dragonstone is more traditionally kept by the Targaryens as a family home- so Rhaenyra is especially enthusiastic about showing the home and the town off to Alicent.
During the day, Rhaenyra tours Alicent around the estate. She’s incredibly well-versed about the history of each room, and Alicent, who has always been just a little too into history, drinks it in, exhausts Rhaenyra’s knowledge to the extent that Beesbury, the long-standing butler at Dragonstone, has to pitch in with his own knowledge.
She shows Alicent the gardens- my mum picked out all the greenery and drew the design. This tree, here, she planted for me- and lets her spend hours in the library, even though Alicent’s sure that Rhaenyra has already taken the tour through all the books before.
She finally teaches Alicent Cyvasse after years of swearing that she would one day get around to it. It almost causes an argument a few times when Alicent makes a move that she can tell she shouldn’t be good enough to know, yet, but there’s always a flicker of pride in Rhaenyra’s eyes that assures Alicent that she’s not actually angry.
They spend almost every night somewhere different in town.
Rhaenyra knows the owner almost every restaurant and shop they go into. Sometimes, it feels like all she needs to do is bat her eyes and the staff are tripping over themselves to please her, which is no surprise considering how influential the Targaryens are in Dragonstone- but Alicent still doesn’t like the way that some of the boys look at her, like they’re trying to figure out how to steal her away for themselves.
The night of the holiday party, Rhaenyra takes Alicent to the market set in the town square. They’ve passed it a few times earlier in the week, but Rhaenyra’s always steered Alicent away.
It’s a cosy sort of market, with string lights draped between each temporary shed and decorations tucked around every corner- decorations Alyrie would have loved, wooden figurines and soft plaids everywhere the eye could see.
It’s busy, but not as busy as the festivities in King’s Landing are this time of year, as Dragonstone is much smaller, more intimate.
They can wander through the booths without getting jostled around, so they walk arm-in-arm, checking out the handmade crafts and sipping on peppermint hot cocoa that is far better than any Alicent and Gwayne have tried to make in years past.
Alicent’s eyes linger, awed, at the line of felted animals that one vendor has, her eyes in particular fixed on a squirrel with the fattest tail she’s ever seen, and Rhaenyra’s taking out her wallet before she can even finish and say look how fluffy-
“Rhaenyra,” she starts to scold as the craftswoman wraps the squirrel in paper, stows him gently away in a candy-cane striped bag, which Rhaenyra presents with a flourish.
“For you, m’lady,” she says, and there it is again, that softness that she keeps catching in Rhaenyra’s eyes.
“Why, thank you, good sir,” Alicent says, and takes the bag, hugs it to her chest. “I didn’t get anything for you, though-”
“No,” Rhaenyra says, immediately. “Being here is more than enough.”
Alicent opens her mouth to respond, but then catches the tremble to Rhaenyra’s lip, and swallows her argument down, pulls Rhaenyra’s hand into hers. She lets her head lean against Rhaenyra’s arm as they finish their rounds through the stalls, lets the other woman’s warmth seep into her bones-
“Did you want to stay any longer?” Rhaenyra offers, when they’ve done essentially the entire loop of the stalls, and Alicent shakes her head, pulls her hands out of her pockets (she’d forgotten her gloves) to show off her pure white fingers.
“I think if we stay longer, my hands will fall off,” she jokes, and Rhaenyra looks horrified.
“You should’ve said something,” she chides, and now she’s the one pulling them back in the direction of the Dragonstone manner, her pace faster, now, determined, with long strides Alicent has to hurry to catch up to- “I would’ve let us go back ages ago.”
But I wanted to stay, Alicent thinks, remembering the way the lights sparkled off Rhaenyra’s clear blue eyes, how her cheeks turned red from the cold.
Alicent couldn’t say that she premeditated this moment, necessarily, or even realized how she felt until she was curled up by the roaring fireplace in Dragonstone manor, Rhaenyra’s arms tightly wrapped around her-
But it feels something like inevitable when Alicent, drowsy off her second cup of cocoa and the warmth from crackling fireplace and all the blankets she’s buried under, looks up from where she’s nestled in Rhaenyra’s arms and sees her looking down at her, vulnerable, open-
“I think I’m in love with you,” Rhaenyra whispers, silver tears tracing the elegant lines of her nose, and Alicent, half-asleep, says in return, “I think I am, too.”
It’s the first time she’s ever said it out loud- even thought it, really, but the moment it’s left her mouth, she knows it’s true. It fits, like a piece of a puzzle she hadn’t realized she had been missing until now.
There’s no first lean-in, but rather, Alicent rises, just a fraction, and Rhaenyra lowers, and then they’re kissing, a tender brush of their lips, before the moment becomes too enormous to process and Alicent pulls away, presses her face into the soft fabric of Rhaenyra’s sweater.
In the morning, they don’t talk about it.
Not really.
Alicent can feel the gravity of what’s happened in her chest, how her heart feels so full it might burst. She can sense in every glance Rhaenyra throws her way, in her lingering touches at Alicent’s waist when they brush by each other in the kitchen and in the way her pinkie finger wraps around Alicent’s as they walk through the old sept in Dragonstone proper a few days later.
She can sense it- but she’s not quite sure what to do about it. She’s not sure how to make sense of being in love with Rhaenyra Targaryen, though by each day that passes with the ghost of a memory of a kiss lingering on her lips, she’s almost certain that she’s been in love with Rhaenyra almost her entire life.
She can’t quite bring herself to take the leap, to ask for another kiss, to pull Rhaenyra into her arms and never let go, but she wants to.
It’s instinctual, how she gravitates toward Rhaenyra, longing to bask in the warmth of her increasingly unabashed affection, but it’s equally instinctual to pull away when she feels the sharp eyes of the septon land on the two of them when they slide into the back row of pews for the holiday service.
She leaves Dragonstone a few days later, feeling more unsettled and unsure of herself than when she arrived.
In the end, she and Rhaenyra had kissed again, and talked, but only briefly- only enough for Rhaenyra to take Alicent’s hands in hers, smoothing over the desperately picked-apart skin around her fingertips- “It’s alright if you’re not ready,” she had said, and Alicent had burst into tears.
“I’m not,” she had said. “But I want to be.”
Her calls and texts with Rhaenyra return. She spends every night with her phone propped up on her desk, listening to Rhaenyra talk about the courses she’s taking in business and economics.
The spark in Rhaenyra’s eyes to return the more the semester creeps by, the shadow of Viserys’s death lifting the more Harwin and Mysaria- her two closest friends from university- start to return to their conversations.
More often than not, Rhaenyra talks, while Alicent alternates between reading her case law and listening.
The first years of law school are kicking Alicent’s ass. The professors are demanding, cruel, even, though Alicent knows it’s to make them better, but it eats away at her, the fear that she’ll be called on and not know the answer.
Her hands are a wreck. Her sleep schedule is even worse, especially when Rhaenyra’s out for the evening and can’t lull Alicent to unconsciousness with her voice- but Alicent doesn’t dare admit it.
Rhaenyra is still grieving, and her family has given Alicent more than enough charity that she doesn’t feel right, bothering them with something she can’t even really explain herself.
Corlys had emailed her over the break asking if she’d still like the internship over the summer, which felt like far more generosity than she deserved considering she could barely get through her cold calls without feeling like she’ll burst into tears.
She’s never felt more out of her element, more set off her foundation by school and Rhaenyra, Rhaenyra, Rhaenyra.
Day after day, she calls Rhaenyra, stays up late trying to read more pages than she can possibly manage in a day, goes to class and fights off the nausea and tries not to cry- then she calls Rhaenyra again the next night and repeats it all over again until there’s snow falling out her window again.
Otto visits the year following because she’s too busy studying for her late finals to go back home for Sevenmas. They catch up over expensive caviar and wine at a restaurant near Alicent’s student flat, with Criston, Alicent’s closest friend from her second year, at her side because she’s not entirely sure if she can make it through dinner with her father without some kind of buffer.
She quickly starts to regret her choice when she sees that Otto’s getting that gleam in his eyes again.
“So, how long have you two been together?” he says, with a fatherly smile that meets his eyes for the first time in a long time, and gods, he’s happy, and it makes her sick.
Criston almost chokes on his steak, rushes to swallow. “Oh, we’re not-” he stammers, stops, restarts again, but can’t get much farther before he’s looking at Alicent, begging her with dark eyes to intervene.
Alicent, walking back towards the bathrooms at a random bar to find Criston, his back pressed against the the wall and his tongue down the throat of a boy in their section-
“I’m a lesbian,” Alicent blurts, before she can process, before she can stop herself, and the smile drops off Otto’s face like a stone, and his eyes, when she dares to meet them, are suddenly cold as marble.
The silence pulls, stretches taut-
“I’ll give you a moment to reconsider that statement,” Otto says finally, like ice.
Alicent grits her teeth, thinks about her mother, then, how she had pulled Alicent into her hospital bed and cupped her face in both hands- my darling girl, I love you for everything you are and more-
“I won’t,” Alicent says, staring into her merlot, fist clenched around her fork, and Criston shifts nervously in his seat.
Otto wipes his mouth with his pristine napkin and folds it deliberately on the table.
Then he stands, pulling his suit coat off the back of his chair.
Please, Alicent wants to say, almost takes it back, but the words don’t come out. Please, don’t go.
But he doesn’t even give her a second glance as he opens his wallet, sets a wad of bills at his seat, and leaves without another word to either of them.
Alicent’s not sure how she gets home. Well, she knows that Criston gets her there, but if there were to have been a crime that evening where she needed an alibi, she’d be unable to give any detail about how she ended up stumbling back into the door of her home.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asks, standing by the entryway, and she forces a smile. Her cheeks are dry. They’ve stayed dry the entire night, which is a feat in itself.
“I’ll be fine,” she says, in a way that means she won’t be. Criston steps forward, pulls her in for a hug, and it’s almost right. She could convince herself that it was, if only if it weren’t for Rhaenyra Targaryen.
“Call me if you need anything?” Criston murmurs.
“Sure.”
She won’t.
He considers her for a moment, then nods. “Your phone’s on the table, by the way,” he says, with a pointed stare, and then he leaves.
She doesn’t call Rhaenyra, either, though she craves the Rhaenyra’s comfort. She can’t bring herself to, when all she can think about is how she had been tempted, just for a moment, to throw herself at Criston and just try to be the girl her father wanted her to be.
So she curls up in bed and cries, and cries, and cries, late into the night and the next morning until her chest heaves and no more tears come.
The rest of her holidays are bleak. Rhaenyra’s busy- she’s started interning at Targaryen Enterprises, and she’s trying to make up her lost time with Aemma from last year.
I’m sorry, she’d said over the phone, when they’d tried to coordinate their plans. I just can’t make the trip. We’ll call, though, yeah?
Alicent knows this. She understands- she truly does. Family is important, especially to the Targaryens, and Rhaenyra has always loved her family.
Which is why she doesn’t tell Rhaenyra about what’s happened with Otto. Doesn’t beg her to visit, even though her heart feels like it’s shattered into a million pieces, and rips at her hands almost non-stop and wakes up sweating and shaking and in tears most mornings.
Gwayne calls to wish her well in the new year. She fumbles through their conversation, tries not to burst into tears over the phone. He sounds happy- his girlfriend is moving to Oldtown, and he’s talking about mother’s ring and will you-- and she pastes on a smile, because she loves Gwayne’s girlfriend.
Of course, she says, and means it. You have my blessing. She’ll be so happy.
And then she hangs up and sobs, for Gwayne- for the man he’s become, kind and chivalrous and doting- and at the thought that Otto will never see her in the same light.
Alicent’s twenty-five, now, graduated from law school and practicing at the Oldtown branch of the Velaryon’s firm.
She’s successful- sought after, even. In the medical law circles, she’s hailed as the next Corlys, if not better than him- a fact that he encourages, rather than resents.
The work days are rewarding, and it’s so close to what she’s wanted, but she can’t bring herself to enjoy it.
She keeps catching colds, and lingering migraines creep up on her in the middle of the day. Her doctors say that it’s a combination of stress from the job, and the heavy feeling in her chest that won’t go away, that rising sense of panic and fear and anxiety that she just can’t shake.
She knows she should do something about it- she’s just not sure what.
She shoves it deep, deep down.
She doesn’t dare to show the cracks in her soul- not when Rhaenyra still calls her, sometimes, tearful, begging her to fill the line with happier tales of what’s happened at the firm, to distract her from the ghost of her father that still lingers in her family company.
Alicent cannot afford to let herself falter now. She knows Otto will pounce the moment he senses hesitation, and she can’t help but think Rhaenyra will second-guess her choice to love Alicent when she realizes that she still isn’t ready, even though she’s been given years and Rhaenyra’s started talking about the brownstone in King’s Landing she’s just bought, how there’s a kitchen Alicent will love, with sage green cabinets and the bay windows she’s always wanted.
Alicent can’t bring herself to stop her. To admit that she’s not sure how to deal with the twisting knot in her stomach every time she tries to imagine their life together, how she feels the wrath of the Seven burning behind her eyes every time she closes them-
Rhaenyra takes Alicent back to Dragonstone, that year.
She doesn’t explain why. Doesn’t even mention the party, or what they’ll be missing- just presents her with the softest pair of emerald green mittens and matching hat- from my mum- and Alicent follows, because she’ll follow Rhaenyra Targaryen anywhere.
Away from Oldtown, Alicent can breathe a little.
Rhaenyra fills their days with lovely activities. Ice skating one day, where Alicent spends the whole time stumbling around like a baby animal and Rhaenyra skates circles around her, and a hike through the snowy woods another day, followed by hot chocolate that reminds Alicent of Gwayne and her mother.
The nights, she spends cradled in Rhaenyra’s arms, lulled by wine and the smell of Rhaenyra’s cologne. She often drifts off to sleep there, settled in a way she can never get to when they’re apart.
It’s peaceful- the fireplace and the quiet. It’s nothing like the hubbub of her normal life.
Outside the window, snow softens the harsher landscape of Dragonstone, stills the air and reminds her of the night they first kissed, and makes her a little braver, then, when Rhaenyra leans down and Alicent catches the barely-tempered spark in her eyes when Alicent parts her lips and their tongues brush against one another.
Four years, she thinks, with just a hint of bitterness.
Four years to almost the day, in the very same room, and she and Rhaenyra have never had sex or labeled their relationship, even though Alicent stopped seeing people the moment Aemma asked her to fly to Dragonstone, and Rhaenyra turned down Mysaria point-blank three years ago when the other woman asked her on a date.
It’s Alicent’s fault. She’s always been the one to push away- I can’t, she’s said, more than once, tears streaming down her face, gasping for air and clutching the seven-pointed star necklace her mother gave her.
Each time, Rhaenyra kissed her tenderly, tucked her back under the sheets, and said I love you anyway.
But oh, how Alicent wanted, each time.
She’s so tired of pushing Rhaenyra away, resisting the pull that’s brought them together since they were girls.
It’s exhaustion, then, more than anything, that overrides Alicent’s thoughts when she pulls Rhaenyra down, lets Rhaenyra press her into the bed and slot her thigh between Alicent’s legs.
It’s desperation that has her fumbling with the button of Rhaenyra’s trousers- a desperation to feel something other than guilt and fear, and when her fingers slip into Rhaenyra’s underwear and find her slick and wanting, it’s finally a desperation of a different kind, hot and wanting-
Rhaenyra moans, her lips mouthing at the pale skin of Alicent’s neck, and it’s enough to make Alicent forget, just for a moment, why she’s been so terrified of letting herself have this in the first place. She eases her fingers into Rhaenyra’s cunt, starts thrusting slow and deliberate, chasing Rhaenyra’s thigh with her own hips with each press deeper-
An hour later, sweat only just beginning to dry on her skin, a wine-stain mark slowly starting to show against her clavicle, Alicent decides that sex is what flying might feel like, if she were the type to enjoy heights- a heady rush and a swooping feeling in her stomach that leaves her breathless, starry-eyed and free.
The next morning dawns and Alicent wakes to the sound of seven long, low tolls on the grandfather clock downstairs. Her heart feels tight as she extracts herself from the sheets and Rhaenyra’s clingy embrace, slips into her favorite green sweater and the hat Aemma gave her, then out into the frigid air of the balcony-
Her breaths come out in puffs that hang just for a moment in the air before they dissipate. Some stray snowflakes drift down from the gray skies as she clings to the railing-
Her father, over the phone the day before she left with Rhaenyra to come here- One day, you’ll realize that you’re throwing away your life for the sake of a childhood companion whose image you’ve distorted with your own lust and selfishness-
Her mother, years ago, before she was sick- The Faith is many things, Alicent, but it is not a cage. It can teach us about ourselves, but it should not rule who we become.
Gwayne- You know, Alicent, if you wanted to bring Alicent along to meet Elyse, I think they would get along splendidly- pointedly, in that way of his that meant he knew even though he shouldn’t.
She thinks about the texts Otto sent, when he realized she wasn’t coming to visit him for the holiday. How nasty he had been about her work with Corlys, about Rhaenyra, about the Faith and everything in between, and then, Alicent, please do not leave your old man to miss his family in solitude this year-
She’s made a mess of her cuticles before she even realizes, until hands, always warm hands wrap around hers, holding them tight, and she looks and Rhaenyra is there, hair mussed (properly fucked, is more like it), with that achingly tender look in her eyes-
“Happy Sevenmas,” she murmurs, and brings their clasped hands up to her lips with a gentle smile. Then, solemn- “Everything alright?”
Alicent swallows. Turns her eyes back outward, to beyond, where she thinks she can see a bird, high above the ocean, soaring higher and higher, wings steady-
Rhaenyra’s mouth against her thigh, her eyes, heavy as they looked up at Alicent, her fingers, coaxing whimpers out of Alicent, drawing out her orgasm, and that feeling, like she could take flight in her arms alone-
“Yes,” she says, after a moment, when the bird is out of view, and turns, kisses Rhaenyra, burning hot.
It’s a long journey, after that. She lets herself become braver, bit by bit, lets herself chase that feeling of flying:
“My girlfriend,” she says, when she introduces Rhaenyra to Gwayne and Elyse over dinner, first, and then, to Criston, later.
Then there’s a case the next year- a public one that makes national news- two lesbians, rightful parents- fighting to get custody of their daughter, where the legalities of donors and surrogates somehow became blurred with poor contracts and verbal agreements that shouldn’t have meant anything, but did- and Corlys moves to set it aside on his desk- too risky- and Alicent puts out a hand, stops him- I’ll take it-
A disgrace, Otto calls her, over the phone, and she sobs into Rhaenyra’s arms the entire night, gets up in the morning, puts on mascara and blush and her highest heels she owns-
She goes to court, and wins, and the couple’s first action, after hugging each other, is to reach across the table and hug Alicent, teary-eyed- thank you- and then, flowers sent to her office, with a card with a photo of the parents, the baby, happy, bright-eyed in the snow-
Rhaenyra fucks her into the mattress that night, calls her good girl, and Alicent thinks it all might be worth it, in the end, when Otto has nothing to say about the wave of clientele that comes in off the heels of Alicent’s success.
Two years after that-
“Would you---?” Rhaenyra asks, stammering, nervous in a way Alicent’s never seen her on one knee, winter wind whipping around her in Dragonstone, and it’s yes, before Alicent really even processes the question, because she’s known -
A gold ring, then, and a fire-red ruby and forest-green emerald on her finger-
Aemma, when they visit King’s Landing just days later, kissing her cheeks- my girl, she says, and Alicent cries, just a little, and lets Aemma hold her and fuss over her freezing hands, while Baelon reaches out and ruffles Alicent’s hair into a tangled mess.
Later, there’s Corlys and Rhaenys, who don’t even look surprised when Alicent shows her ring at the party, but she can see the proud glimmer in their eyes nonetheless.
Sevenmas that year becomes bright again, surrounded by Rhaenyra’s family- your family, Rhaenyra tells her, kissing her shoulder, a reminder, when Alicent’s eyes get big and wet and lonely-
And their family, too, becomes more- first, a fluffy orange cat Alicent gifts her after months of Rhaneyra begging for one.
She cries when Alicent brings her out of the garage (cats don’t work well under the tree, she figures)- she’s beautiful, Alicent- and then, hours later when she’s done nothing but cuddle and praise the cat while Alicent cooks their Sevenmas dinner- I see that look, don’t be jealous, and Alicent’s not, but she’s not used to sharing Rhaenyra like this-
You must have a thing for redheads, Alicent jokes, with just a little bite to her words, and Rhaenyra gives her that look, backs her up against those sage green cabinets, kisses her long and slow- And what if I do?
She makes up for it, in the end.
The second and third additions to their family are more unexpected.
A late night phone call, the night before Sevenmas- Alicent, stirring as Rhaenyra answers, groggy- and then, a flurry of activity, hastily donned sweatpants and sweatshirts, Rhaenyra in Alicent’s sweater, Alicent in Rhaenyra’s joggers, the hospital-
Gods, Alicent hates hospitals, hates them even more when they round the corner and there’s two young boys with curly brown hair just like Harwin’s and big eyes filled with tears. The oldest, Jacaerys, can’t be more than ten.
Alicent chokes down her grief, sweeps them both into a hug even though she’s only met them twice, and they accept it, a little stiffly.
Rhaenyra speaks with the doctors- they’d asked, and I’d agreed to take them, but I never thought- and Alicent knows the boys are watching her, their eyes too perceptive-
“Look,” she says, takes out her phone, shows them the video of Syrax jumping up onto the refrigerator and promptly falling off again, and Lucerys only laughs a little before he cries, presses his face into her shoulder.
Rhaenyra returns, her face pale, shakes her head at Alicent, and Alicent knows, in the same way she knew when her mother died by the look on the doctors’ faces.
After several long hours of paperwork and talks, they somehow get the boys home and tuck them into the bed in their guest room. Rhaenyra stays with them and quiets Jacaerys when he wakes up screaming for his father and his mother, while Alicent, still in her slippers, scours the town for shops that might be open early in the morning on Sevenmas and eventually comes home with a crochet dragon for Lucerys and a toy sword and shield for Jacaerys.
It’s different, that year.
Alicent had never thought of herself as a mother. She’s always felt sick to her stomach, a bit, at the thought of what it takes about having something growing in her, and becoming anything like her father has been enough to dissuade her from broaching anything close to the topic of babies with Rhaenyra-
But, as she watches a bleary-eyed Lucerys stumble downstairs, his eyes lighting up just a little at the sight of the stuffed animal sitting under the tree for him, she knows that she will hold these boys close to her heart, even though the thought of fucking up these boys- Harwin’s children- in the gaping absence he’s left in his wake- has her taking three of her anxiety pills, hands shaking, in the bathroom for weeks after the boys come into their care.
It’s a struggle, the first year or so.
Alicent is awkward and shy around the boys, cautious of not overstepping the bonds they’ve already forged with Rhaenyra, not wanting to ever seem like she wants to replace Harwin and his wife.
She bakes, and goes to classes about the psychology of children and grief at the hospital when she’s able to between cases, and does the research on paint for their rooms- non-toxic- while Rhaenyra is the one to go through the court, the assessments, and, eventually, the adoption papers-
Alicent had tried to advise her on the legalities of it all, but she’d been sick with worry over it.
In the end, Rhaenys had become Rhaenyra’s unofficial counsel.
Alicent feels a bit out of place in their brownstone, now. She watches Rhaenyra with the boys and sees how much they love her and trust her, and feels her father’s scathing remarks worm their way into her heart, how could a motherless child ever become an adequate enough of one herself, don’t be ridiculous, Alicent.
She doesn’t dare destroy them in that way.
She leaves Rhaenyra do the comforting, the doting, and instead she memorizes both of their school schedules, makes sure she’s there fifteen minutes ahead of when Jacaerys’s football practice ends always, leaves her office early when the nurse calls with a sobbing Lucerys audible over the phone, sets steaming mugs of hot cider out for them when they get home from school.
In the quieter moments, the ones she can tell will mean something- Rhaenyra, holding them tight during the thunderstorms, Rhaenyra, wiping their tears- Alicent makes herself scarce. Busies herself with other things to do, other ways to comfort that won’t make her a bigger figure in their lives than she deserves, like mugs of warm vanilla milk, just the way Rhaenys made for her that once, charging the flashlights so that the boys can make shadow puppets on the wall-
She feels a part of herself starting to stitch itself back together when she sees them playing out in the snowy slush with Rhaenyra and they smile, big smiles that stretch wide across their faces, for the first time since Harwin’s death. She’s relieved, then.
She hasn’t managed to destroy these precious children with the dark parts of her that haven’t healed, yet, from what her mother’s death and her father’s hate have done to her-
Then, Rhaenyra, sopping wet, her hand outstretched- “Come on, Alicent,” she says, and Alicent laughs, shakes her head.
Lucerys, dark hair plastered to his head, blinking up with enormous puppy eyes- “Please, Ali,” he says, lip stuck out in a pout, and Alicent acquiesces, for Lucerys, lets them drag her out into the snow even though she’s nowhere near dressed for it, in jeans and a cardigan-
Things change, shifting-
Jacaerys brings home a science project that he won’t let Rhaenyra help him with- Alicent will understand better, he says, chin stuck out, and Alicent can’t help the way her stomach drops out of her chest as he walks over to her with it, posterboard and all-
She frets over it all week
“Alicent, one mediocre grade will not stunt his emotional or physical wellbeing,” Rhaenyra tells her, just a little teasing, when Alicent almost throws up the morning of his presentation after Jace leaves for school.
(He gets an A, and comes home and jumps into Alicent’s arms clutching the rubric in his hand, the one with excellent work written on it.)
She gets another call from the school- Lucerys, nose bloody from a fight with bigger boy- I’m so sorry, Ms. Hightower, I tried to call Ms. Targaryen but the young one insisted it be you-
It’s different, and Alicent still gets anxious, sometimes, that she’s going about it wrong, but then Jacaerys scores a goal and he points at the sidelines at her and she thinks that maybe, even then, she’s doing well enough.
A few holiday seasons later, Alicent barely remembers a time where Jace and Luke weren’t part of her life, the center of her life, really- and that’s when both boys, teenagers now, an d shy in a way she hasn’t seen from them in a long time, present her with a fancy envelope and a wax seal she knows Rhaenyra helped them with-
Alicent reads maybe a total of fifteen words on the paper, enough to see petition for adoption and Alicent Hightower and Jacaerys and Lucerys Strong before she’s sobbing, and Jace and Luke are throwing their arms around her.
After a moment, when she’s just a little more composed, she looks past them, over their shoulders, and Rhaenyra has tears in her eyes too, while somehow simultaneously looking like the cat that ate the canary, her smile is so brilliant.
It’s Alicent’s happiest holiday memory for a long time. Others after that compare, but it’s difficult to beat the relief, the elation, at having something that’s hers, hers and Rhaenyra’s and Jace’s and Luke’s, and a holiday that feels almost as warm as the ones she remembers with her own mother, all those years ago.